Best Before
by SelimPensFiction
Summary: The Doctor must keep the peace between Amy, Rory, and one of his earlier incarnations, even in the face of a new danger.
1. Chapter 1

The Time Lord instructor, as was his custom, patted the student on the back and smiled to reassure him. With this student, however, reassurance hardly seemed necessary. The instructor shook his head. Yes, he was brilliant, this one. It had been generations since any Gallifreyan had shown such potential. But his brilliance was matched by his ego and lack of patience. A dangerous combination. He would have to be watched and guided carefully.

"Now," said the instructor, "tell me about the Untempered Schism."

The student rolled his eyes. "It's a gap in reality. Through it you see the time vortex, and all of space and time. At eight years old, students are brought to the academy. Looking into the Untempered Schism is part of the initiation. Now, let's have a look!"

"Not so quickly, young one. This is not something to be taken lightly," said the instructor.

"Well I want to see it. 'Cause one day I'm going to go to every galaxy, every planet, visit every time period."

The desire to see all of space and time had led the student to the TARDIS maintenance yard earlier that day. He wasn't allowed, naturally, but he was stealthy and clever. He'd stood in the shadows as a technician emerged from one of the vehicles. "Well, this one has certainly seen better days," the technician said. He dumped some parts he'd removed from the TARDIS onto a cart.

A second technician walked up to him. "It's an old Type 40, isn't it? Well you never know. It might still prove useful one day. We'll repair what we can and let it hibernate for now. But first, I need your help with this one over here."

At that, the two technicians walked away and entered another TARDIS. The student walked up to the cart to examine the parts. Spotting a piece of coral, his eyes widened. They said you could grow an entire TARDIS from one of these. He glanced about. He was still alone. Wasting no more time, he pocketed the coral and left the way he came.

Now, fingering the coral in his pocket, the student looked up at the instructor and realized he had missed something. "Sorry, sir," the student said. "Can you repeat that?"

"You are easily distracted," the instructor said. "This is one of the areas for improvement that we will work on. In the meantime, I asked you what happens to those who look into the Untempered Schism."

"That depends on who's doing the looking," said the student. "As for me, it's just going to whet my appetite."

The instructor sighed. So sure of himself, this one. Well, there was a simple way to cure that. "We'll see," the instructor said. "Now it's time. Prepare yourself and step forward."

The student stepped up to the Untempered Schism, hands on his hips. Then he disappeared.

The instructor blinked. "Well," he said, "that was unexpected."

* * *

"Alright, Doctor," said Amy after the TARDIS landed. "You said it would be a surprise. Where are we?"

"Eh?" questioned the Doctor. "Oh yes." He danced about the console, pushing buttons and turning dials. Then he brushed the hair away from his face and with a smile said, "Cardiff."

Amy and Rory looked at each other. "Cardiff." Rory repeated. "Seriously? Cardiff?"

"What's wrong with Cardiff?" the Doctor asked, still adjusting mechanisms on the console. "Did you know there's a space-time rift in Cardiff? All sorts of things from all of space and time drift through the rift and wash up in Cardiff. It's also a prime location for the TARDIS to replenish her energy supplies. Which is what she's going to do right… now!" And with a flourish, the Doctor pulled a lever on the console. In response, the TARDIS shuddered and the central column started to rise and fall.

"Wait a minute. That wasn't supposed to happen. What are you up to then?" the Doctor said, patting the console.

"Are you talking to me?" asked the boy.

"No," said the Doctor. "It was a rhetorical question."

"Um, Doctor," said Amy.

"Just a minute," said the Doctor, looking at a display on the screen. "I need to investigate this."

"Really, Doctor," said Rory, looking at the boy. "You should turn around and see this."

"Oh, all right," said the Doctor. "What is… it."

"Is this part of the test then?" asked the boy.

The Doctor said nothing, his face worked up into a frowning question.

"Right then," said the boy, walking up to the console. "This is an obsolete TARDIS, isn't it? A Type 40? I saw one this morning in the maintenance yard. Of course, I wasn't supposed to be there, but never mind. I'm clever and I got in. Now, as for these two, let's see. Classic bipedal body structure. Two sexes, I'm guessing they're a male and female. External mammary glands. But this is interesting," he said, walking up to Amy.

"Pink skin on the face and arms, but black on the legs." He put his hands on Amy's knee and ran his fingers up and down.

"Rory," said Amy.

"Ah, I see," said the boy. "Some sort of leg covering. I wonder, does it go all the way up to…"

"RORY!" Amy shouted.

Rory picked up the boy and moved him away. "Would you mind very much not feeling up my wife's legs? Thank you," said Rory.

"Oi!" sad the boy. "Get your hands off me. I don't know where they've been."

He backed away from Rory and looked up at him.

"Humans, no doubt," he said. "From Earth. As for the time period, not long separated from your ape ancestors. A couple of hundred thousand years or so. Am I right?"

"Doctor," said Amy. "Where did this monster come from?"

"What? Watch your manners you… ape woman." said the boy, putting his hands on his hips. "Don't you know you're talking to a Time Lord? Well, a Time Lord in training, but still. Show some respect for your betters."

"Time Lord?" Rory said. "Doctor, what's he talking about?"

The Doctor, having collapsed into a chair, was rubbing his chin. Eyes fixed on the boy, he whispered, "What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean?" asked the boy, turning to the Doctor. "This is part of the test. Isn't it?"

Rising, the Doctor said, "Don't you realize that by being here we've broken the first law of time?"

The boy turned pale and backed away from the Doctor. "We? You mean you're…?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "I'm you, over 900 years later. Your 10th regeneration. You shouldn't be here."

"But I didn't do it," said the boy. "One minute I was standing in front of the Untempered Schism, the next I was here."

"The Untempered Schism," the Doctor repeated.

"Wait. If you're me, why do they call you 'Doctor'?" asked the boy.

"Because that's my name," said the Doctor. "Our name."

"Rubbish," said the boy. "That's not _my_ name, it's…"

But before the boy could continue, the Doctor put a hand over his mouth. "Just stop. The name you're known by isn't to be spoken. It's not safe. Trust me. There'll come a time when you choose a new name. You'll call yourself the Doctor, and that's the name you'll be known by from then on."

"Alright then," said the boy, pushing the Doctor's hand away. "Doctor it is. Still," he said, looking at the Doctor more closely, "You're telling me that I'm going to end up with a chin like that? What a depressing thought."

Amy chortled.

"Oi!" Said the Doctor. "Don't dis the chin."

"And you're wearing a bow tie?"

"What's wrong with bow ties? Bow ties are cool," said the Doctor, straightening his. "No, never mind all that, the important question is, what are we going to do with you?"

The boy sighed. "A big chin and a fossilized brain that wears a bow tie. This is a TARDIS, isn't it? Just take me back to Gallifrey."

"I can't," said the Doctor, turning away from the boy. "I just can't. Don't ask why. Just trust me."

The boy shrugged. "Well, we'll figure it out. We're clever. At least I am. You might have passed your best before date. Meanwhile, I've never been off Gallifrey. Let's go outside and explore. It's just too bad my first planet has to be Earth."

"You know, Doctor," said Amy. "I know you said he's you, a young you, but I'd still like to take him over my knee and…"

"Oh, go climb a tree," said the boy. "Why do you keep these annoying ape creatures in your TARDIS? Are they your pets? Poor choice if they are."

"Pets. Great," said Rory. "Is that how you think of us?"

"What? No, of course not. Right," said the Doctor, clasping his hands together. "Ground rules. As for you," he said, addressing the boy. "These are my friends. They have names: Amy and Rory. Be polite to them and they'll be polite to you. And you'll treat all of us with a bit more respect from now on. And as for the Ponds," the Doctor said, twirling about, "absolutely no spanking."

"That's a shame," Amy muttered. Rory smiled and took her hand.

"And now," continued the Doctor, "let's go out for a bit. After all, what could go wrong in Cardiff?"

* * *

_To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

Alys Clougher was attractive and she knew it. Out of the office, it was a tool that helped her to sell insurance. In the office it was a different story, her appearance often being the cause of unwelcome distraction. Men, married or not, often found an excuse to stop by her cube, stumbling their way through conversations about matters she really wasn't that interested in. Politeness required her to smile and nod. To a point. Some days it was hard to get anything done.

It looked like this was going to be one of those days. Three of her male co-workers were coming up the aisle in her direction, sporting the latest in wearable tech gear. With a sigh, Alys took her hands off the keyboard and smiled faintly in their direction.

Odd that they weren't smiling back. Maybe they weren't going to pester her after all. No, that would be too much to hope for. They did stop at her cube, but then just stood and stared blankly. "Good morning," Alys said, to break the ice. "Got some new contraptions, have we?"

Still the men said nothing. Puzzled, she swiveled back in her chair, away from them slightly. One of the men approached her and touched her shoulder. He left his hand there. Alys took his hand to politely move it off.

That was when her eyes widened with shock and she screamed.

* * *

The TARDIS had set down in Cardiff near the Roald Dahl Plass. Walking out into the plaza, the Doctor asked his younger self, "So, what do you think?"

The boy looked about him. "Primitive, isn't it?"

Amy spoke up. "We do quite well, thank you very much."

Ignoring her, the boy continued. "And the air smells funny. What is that? It's not hydrocarbons, surely?"

He looked at Amy and Rory. They weren't smiling. Then the boy's eyes popped. "You actually burn carbon-based fuels? And then let the residue drift up into the air you breathe? Ah ha ha ha. That's brilliant."

Rory glared at him. "Do you think you might have anything nice to say? About anything?"

The boy pondered this. Then he pointed towards a group of people walking in their direction. "Well, they seem to have some interesting technology. What is that? Sensory augmentation? Communication?"

"Um, Doctor," said Rory. "He has a point. What do you make of it?"

There were four people in the group, three men and a woman. They were dressed in business attire, but it was the adornments on their heads that caught Rory's attention. At first he thought they were simply wearing Bluetooth headsets. But no, they had something metallic covering one of their eyes. But it was more than that. Now it seemed the devices covered half their faces. Was it just because they were getting closer, or...

"You know what particularly disturbs me about this?" Rory asked.

"The attachments seem to be spreading?" said Amy.

"That would be it," said Rory. "Doctor?"

The Doctor was entranced by the sight. When the tech-adorned group was only twenty feet away, they stretched out their arms towards the Doctor and his companions.

"What do we do, Doctor?" Amy asked.

They were a dozen feet away. "Run!" said the Doctor.

The boy stood his ground. "What? But you're a Time Lord. Time Lords don't…"

The Doctor gave him a fierce look. "I said, run!"

They dashed off across the plaza. On the far side, they encountered a group of a half dozen. They were similarly adorned with unknown technology. On spotting the Doctor and his companions, they also started in pursuit.

Amy looked back. The people, whoever or whatever they were, weren't running, that was the good news. They were following, but at a walking pace. The bad news was that they were everywhere. They came up to a street that was fairly stoppered with people, rounded a corner, and found a large group a block ahead of them. But they hadn't been spotted yet. The Doctor stopped, taking stock of their surroundings, when he heard someone call, "Doctor! Over here!"

The door to one of the buildings swung open for them. Looking back, the Doctor saw that his younger self had fallen behind and was puffing badly. The Doctor beckoned his companions into the building. It was dimly lit, but seemed to be a storage area. There were wooden crates all over, organized haphazardly, stacked a dozen feet high in some places. Amy looked around to see who had called to them, then spotted him. Tall, young, handsome, very handsome, actually, wearing an old great coat. He was looking intently at the Doctor.

"Good to see you again, Doctor," he said.

"Jack," said the Doctor, "I might have known."

"I saw the TARDIS materialize and figured you'd head this way sooner or later. You've changed. Again."

The Doctor nodded. "Jack, this is Amy Pond and Rory Williams."

"Captain Jack Harkness," said Jack, shaking Amy's hand. "Pleased to meet you, Amy Pond." Amy found herself smiling without particularly meaning to.

"Not now, Jack," the Doctor said. "Anyway, she's married."

"To you, I take it," Jack said to Rory. "Pleased to meet you Rory Williams." Jack's face beamed. "Ah, the possibilities."

Looking past Jack, Rory asked, "Sorry, Doctor, but what's he on about?"

"You don't want to know, trust me," said the Doctor.

Turning his attention to the boy, Jack asked, "And who's this handsome young man?"

But the boy was backing away in horror. "What are you?" he whispered.

"Ah, right," said the Doctor. He moved beside the boy and crouched down. "Jack is a fixed point in time. An impossibility except for the fact that, well, he's here, isn't he? It's a long story, but he's a good man. Look past your instinct, past the wrongness of him. He's a friend and you can trust him."

The Doctor stood again and faced Jack. "He's me, Jack. When I was a child. We've crossed timelines and need to set that right. But first, we need to know what we're dealing with here."

Jack took a moment to absorb the news, then summarized what he knew. "It started just a couple of days ago. Some type of new technology appeared, we weren't sure what it was. All we knew was that it was spreading. Rapidly. By the time it took Gwen and Ianto, I realized that it was some kind of virus. A living, self-replicating, electronic virus. It seems to spread by physical contact. Over time it covers more and more of the host's body. Some of the first infected are covered head to toe. When a host touches someone uninfected, some of the material leaves the original host and moves to the new, where it starts replicating itself again. It must have come through the rift. I've never seen anything like it."

"Nor I," said the Doctor.

"Well, it's obvious what we have to do then," said the boy. Everyone looked at him.

"We have to capture someone who's infected so we can examine it, don't we?" he continued. "The only thing is we need some type of scanning tool."

The Doctor smiled. "You mean like this?" He tossed his sonic screwdriver at the boy.

Catching it, the boy grinned, turning it over in his hands. "A screwdriver. I've heard of these. Never seen one before." He passed it back to the Doctor.

"Right," said the Doctor. He put the screwdriver away and clasped his hands together. "Plan. We find someone infected who's isolated, capture them, and bring them back so we can examine them. Then we work out how to fight back and free the city."

"Leave the first part to me," said Jack. He used a crowbar to free a plank of wood from one of the crates and hefted it. It would do. "Rory, you're with me. Grab that blanket over there and let's go."

Rory look questioningly at the Doctor. The Doctor nodded. With a sigh, Rory picked up the blanket and went to the door. Jack opened it a crack, then beckoned Rory to follow him. They exited the building, closing the door behind them.

The others sat on some of the crates to wait. "So who is Jack, anyway?" Amy asked.

"He's from your future. The 51st century. He was a time agent. Well, that's how he started. When I met him, during your second world war, he was a con man. But he helped solve a difficult problem and travelled with us for a while."

"And why do you, and your brattish younger you-no offence-perceive him as wrong? You said he was a fixed point in time?"

The boy made a face at Amy. She smiled back.

The Doctor stood and went to look out a window for Jack and Rory. When he returned, he continued. "There was a battle with the Daleks. A deadly battle. Jack was killed. But Rose, she also travelled with me, she looked into the time vortex, absorbed its power. No one is meant to have that kind of power. She destroyed the Daleks and brought Jack back to life, but she couldn't control it. Now Jack is a fixed point in time. If he's killed, he comes back to life seconds later."

"You mean, he regenerates?" the boy asked.

"No. He simply comes back to life. He's died many times since then."

The boy thought for a minute. "What if we did that?" he asked in a whisper. "Absorbed the power of the time vortex."

"Then we'd become Gods. Angry Gods, destroying everyone and everything around us. It's too much power. I absorbed the power from Rose to save her life, but it was too much. I had to regenerate."

The boy shook his head. "They think they know everything, the Time Lords. But they don't, do they?"

The Doctor smiled. "No one does. But you know what they say. Well, they didn't say it on Gallifrey, but just about everywhere else. Nothing like travel to broaden the mind."

The boy was thoughtful for a moment. He was about to speak when the door burst open and Rory and Jack entered, each pulling on a corner of the blanket. Lying on the blanket, unconscious, was an infected man. Much of the right side of his head was covered with the viral electronics. Amy strode to the door, closed it behind them, then went to hug Rory.

"They may be covered with metal," Jack said, "but a good whack on the head still does the trick."

"Right, now let's see," said the Doctor. "All of you, stand back."

The Doctor crouched down beside the man and scanned him with the screwdriver. Then he put it away and scratched his head. Finally, he stood to face the others.

"You were right, Jack. We're dealing with a living, electronic virus. It's evolving rapidly. I can't tell what form it took when it arrived, but I suspect that it was energy absorbed from the rift that brought it to life."

"How is that possible?" Rory asked.

"Well, life on this planet started much the same way," the Doctor explained. "Once there was only a primordial soup containing the basic building blocks. Life came along when these building blocks were exposed to energies that caused self-replicating molecules to form. I think much the same thing has happened here.

"Having come to life, it's adapted itself perfectly to feed off the thought patterns of humans. It's this energy that allows it to replicate itself, like plants feeding off the sunlight." He paused for a moment. "But there's more. Collectively, the virus-infected form a kind of hive. The components can communicate with one another. This is what allows them to seek out the uninfected in groups."

"So how do we stop them?" Jack asked.

"If it was a regular virus," Rory said, "we'd use an antiviral. Introduce something that it thought was proper genetic material but, once incorporated, caused it to stop functioning."

While the others discussed this, the boy crouched beside the unconscious man, staring in fascination at the components attached to his head. Just then, the man's eyes popped open.

Startled, the boy called out, "Doctor." No reaction. The others were immersed in their discussion. "Doctor!" he repeated.

The Doctor turned, just in time to see the man grip the boy's wrist.

"No!" shouted the Doctor. Too late. The boy tried to get away, but the man's grip was too strong. Then some of the components started to migrate. They traveled from the man's head, along the shoulder, the arm, all the time replicating.

The Doctor whipped out his screwdriver, but it was ineffectual. The components traveled to the boy's arm and up to his head. Once the infection took hold, it spread rapidly. Unbelievably rapidly. In seconds his entire head was covered, and in a minute, he was covered from head to toe. At that point, the infected boy and man rose and, with outstretched arms, started walking towards the Doctor.

* * *

To be concluded in Chapter 3.

**Author's note**

I'm not sure where the Doctor Who and Torchwood timelines intersect. However, I prefer to think that with the reboot of the universe in the Doctor Who episode "The Big Bang", the events in the Torchwood series "Children of Earth" and "Miracle Day" never happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Excerpt from "The Sound of Drums"

DOCTOR: It's a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the vortex. You stand there, eight years, staring at the raw power of time and space, just a child. Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad.

MARTHA: What about you?

DOCTOR: Oh, the ones that ran away, I never stopped.

* * *

The Doctor and his companions backed away. His younger self was infected, completely covered by the electronic virus that had emerged from the rift. Now he and another were approaching the group, attempting to infect them in turn.

"How is this possible?" Amy asked, horrified. "You're here. How can your younger self be infected like this?"

The Doctor said nothing as they continued to back away.

"Doctor!" Amy said.

Jack touched her shoulder and shook his head. "Time can be rewritten," he whispered.

"Why did it take him so quickly?" Rory asked. "Jack said it took days for the earliest infected to be completely overtaken."

"They feed off of thought energy," the Doctor said. "Time Lords have many times the neural connections of a human. The viral components feasted on him, reproducing at an unprecedented rate."

They'd backed up almost to the outer wall.

"We have to get out of here," the Doctor said, finally. "It's not safe. Jack, are your Torchwood headquarters secure?"

"Not since Ianto and Gwen were taken. Their knowledge of the security protocols are part of this electronic hive now."

"Then we have to make our way back to the TARDIS. We'll try to circle around and go back. Let's go. Now!"

And with that, the Doctor threw open the door and they ran from the warehouse, heading up the street to the right. There was a large group of infected ahead of them, just past the next street. The Doctor's group turned right again, only to face an even larger throng of infected.

Jack went to one of the shops on the left and kicked in the door. "In here," he said. "We can try exiting at the back."

It was a butcher shop. The air seemed faintly rancid.

"That's put me off meat," Rory muttered.

The rear exit led onto a narrow service lane. Jack glanced left and right. "It's clear," he said. "But I don't like it. Too narrow. No other obvious exit points."

At that point, they heard a crash as a number of infected entered the front of the shop.

"No choice," the Doctor said. "Let's go."

Jack led the way to right. But before they could exit the lane, a group of infected appeared and blocked their way.

"Back!" said the Doctor. "Back the other way."

But they'd run just a short distance when another group of infected blocked that exit.

"We're trapped," said Jack. "We'll have to fight our way out."

From both directions, the infected entered the lane, approaching the Doctor's group.

_Doctor._

Startled, the Doctor, cocked his head to one side.

"What is it?" Rory asked.

"I thought I heard something," the Doctor said.

"They've stopped," Jack said. "Look, they've stopped moving."

_Doctor!_

The Doctor spun around and slapped the side of his head. The others stared at him.

"Doctor, what on Earth are you doing?" said Amy.

"I heard a voice. Inside my head. And that's impossible. That could only happen if there was another…"

"Another what, Doctor?" asked Rory.

"Another Time Lord," the Doctor whispered.

_Doctor. It's me. You. Go to your TARDIS. Wait there. You'll know what to do._

"We can't _get_ to the TARDIS," the Doctor said out loud. "They're blocking the way."

_I'll clear a path._

"Doctor, look!" said Jack. "They're leaving."

"What do we do?" Amy asked.

The Doctor smiled. "What do you think, Pond? Run!"

And with that, they set off at full speed. Past the lane and into Roald Dahl Plass, there were hundreds of infected all around them. None of them interfered. When they made the TARDIS, the Doctor quickly unlocked the door and they piled in.

The Doctor ran to the console and activated the external monitor. The others gathered around him.

"They're approaching," said Jack. "Hundreds of them. Thousands."

They all looked at the Doctor.

"Doctor? What's happening?" Amy asked. The Doctor, intent on the screen, appeared not to have heard. "Doctor?"

"Hmm? Ah." The Doctor turned to her and smiled. "I think I'm just beginning to work it out. And it's brilliant. Watch."

The throng of infected continued to approach the TARDIS. As they arrived, each of them touched the outer hull, fully transferring the electronic virus to the TARDIS. The human hosts were left uninfected. Those who had done so walked away shakily, apparently in a daze. This continued for a full hour, until the TARDIS was covered with the virus material to a depth of several feet.

The last of them turned out to be the young Doctor. After transferring his virus material to the TARDIS, he waved and walked back to the plaza.

The Doctor's companions were stunned. "Doctor," said Jack, "What just happened?"

"Oh, it's not over yet, Jack. Here comes the best part." And with that, the Doctor activated the dematerialization circuit and the TARDIS, with all its encrusted electronics, left the Earth. Continuing to set dials and enter data, the Doctor danced about the console until finally he pulled the a lever and the TARDIS materialized.

Turning on the display again, the Doctor asked his companions, "Right. What do you see?"

"Nothing," Rory said.

"Exactly! We've in space on the outskirts of a black hole. All that remains is to jettison the virus material from the outer hull and Bob's your uncle." And with the push of a button, he did just that.

* * *

The boy was smiling as he sat in the square, watching the humans come and go. They'd proved to be surprisingly resilient for such a fragile species. They were already going about their business as if nothing had happened. Perhaps they'd evolved in such a way as to push such events out of their minds so as to continue sensibly with their lives. Clever. And they were caring. A few had stopped to ask him if he needed help, or if he was lost. "I'm fine," he'd said. "Just waiting for something."

One human female, elderly he thought, had asked what he was waiting for.

"I'm waiting to see what I'll look like in a few hundred years," he'd said.

The female didn't smile exactly, but her eyes twinkled. "I should think you'll look somewhat worse for the wear."

"Yes," he'd replied, "I think you're right."

Lots of Time Lords could have given him a factual account of human biology, but none could have told him what he'd observed about humans here on Earth with his own eyes. Travel did broaden the mind. And perhaps Time Lord arrogance wasn't so easily justified.

Two hours after his older self had left, the boy felt a sudden breeze and heard the telltale sounds of a TARDIS materializing. He continued to sit, waiting for the others to join him.

They approached quickly. His older self grabbed him a big hug. "I forgot that I was so clever when I was young," he said.

"Well," said the boy, "that's what comes of a fossilized brain. Where did you get rid of them?"

"A black hole," said the Doctor.

The boy nodded. "Pretty clever. For a senior citizen."

Meanwhile, Amy was near to bursting. "Would someone please explain what happened?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded to his younger self.

"It all started with this," the boy said, taking the coral from his pocket. The Doctor's eyes widened a bit and he smiled. The last piece of the puzzle.

Continuing, the boy said, "I picked it up this morning in the maintenance yard. It was from a Type 40 TARDIS. But not just any one. It was yours. When I stood before the time vortex at the Untempered Schism, this must have linked me to your TARDIS through the rift here on Earth. That's how I came here. Then I was infected. Soon after, I realized I could communicate with the electronic hive and control them in a sense. Or at least, point them in a certain direction. It occurred to me, a TARDIS is a living thing, grown from coral just like this. I gave the hive a nudge, suggesting they forget about humans and infect the TARDIS instead. I pointed them to the TARDIS using the connection from the coral."

Looking at Rory, the boy said, "You were right. The way to beat them was to introduce something that seemed to be compatible, but wasn't. In this case, that was me."

Amy sat down and put her arm around the young Doctor. "Not bad for a brat."

"Thanks, ape girl."

Amy cuffed the back of his head and stood.

Captain Jack shook his head and smiled. "Well, Doctor, a pleasure as always. I'd better get back and see what mischief my team is up to." And with that, he offered the Doctor a salute.

The Doctor nodded and returned the salute. Then Jack turned to the younger Doctor. "You're going to grow up to be one amazing fella," he said.

The boy smiled. "I thought I was already amazing." Amy cuffed him again. "Ow! Are all humans as violent as you?"

"Just the ones from Scotland," Amy said.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor placed the coral into a compartment, then adjusted dials and entered data, darting about the console and twitching like a marionette.

While he worked, the boy went over to Amy and Rory. "You travel with him, don't you?"

"Yes we do," Amy said.

"And is this what it's like? What it's usually like?"

Amy and Rory looked at each other. "Pretty much, yeah," said Rory.

The boy's eyes widened. "I can't wait!"

"Right," said the Doctor. "Everything's ready. All set to send you home. Are _you_ ready?"

"Yes, except…" and the boy sat down.

The Doctor looked at him. "Except what?"

"Except I don't really _want_ to go back. I want to travel with you."

The Doctor smiled. "You know that's not possible. And you still have a lot to learn, clever as you are. I should know."

"I suppose. But Gallifrey is dead."

The Doctor started. "What do you mean?"

"It's dead but nobody knows it. Nothing ever changes. Nothing is discovered. All there is is self-indulgent squabbling to pass the time."

Exhaling in relief, the Doctor knelt down beside his younger self. "Then do something about it. Go back and liven things up. Keep them on their toes, you know? And some day, you'll be here, traveling the universe, seeing things, going to places even the Time Lords couldn't have imagined."

The boy looked at him. "Doctor, that's the second time you've referred to the Time Lords in the past tense. What's going on in your time?"

The Doctor's face went blank and he stood. "Did I do that? Quite unintentional. Now. What say we get you home, eh? Ah. But first. Something I have to tell you. If you're going to grow up to be me, there's one thing you absolutely must learn, something they won't teach you, but that will save your life over and over." Then he bent over and whispered in the boy's ear.

The boy nodded, then stood and went to shake hands with Rory. "Doctor," said Rory, smiling.

He went to Amy and looked at her quizzically.

"Oh, come here, you," Amy said, and gave him a big hug. He hugged her in return, but cuffed the back of her head before letting go.

"Got you," he said.

"You're a right devil, aren't you?" Amy said with a smile.

The boy smiled back. "I'll see you again," he said. Then he turned to the Doctor. "Ready."

The Doctor nodded, then flipped a console switch. And the boy disappeared.

* * *

It had been an hour since the boy vanished. To the Time Lord instructor, it seemed much longer. He should have headed back to the academy right away, of course, but the question was, how exactly was this to be explained?

Then he felt a movement behind him. Turning, he saw… that infernal boy.

"Where are you going?"

The student looked over his shoulder and said, "I'm going to be doing a lot of running. It'll save my life, you know. Time to start practicing."

Dismayed, the instructor called after him, "A Time Lord doesn't…" the boy was gone. "Run."

Shaking his head, the instructor set out after him, walking with a dignified gait. _This one will either be the greatest Time Lord that ever lived, or will cause a lot of trouble_. Then with a smile he thought, _Perhaps both_.


End file.
